Management Styles and Leadership Practices at Coca-Cola - Case Study Example

Description of the Company

Coca-Cola Company is currently the world’s largest manufacturer, retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic drinks. The company was started by Dr. John Styth Pemberton in 1886 after he made a cough syrup which he later named ‘Coke’. The beverages from the company are sold in almost all the countries of the world. This has made it to retain its position as the number one nonalcoholic beverage producer for more than one hundred years. It has more than 700,000 system employers, 129,200 associates and is ranked among the top ten private companies with many employees (Jesse, 2004). The mission of the Coca-Cola Company is to continue thriving in business through refreshing the world, inspiring moments of optimism and happiness and creating value through making a difference.

Organizational Structure of Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola Company has an extremely complex organizational structure mainly because it is operational in too many countries. The Company is mainly controlled by a vertical structural authority where the top most decision maker is the president of the company. The daily routines and small challenges can simply be resolved at the middle level managerial line.

The basic level of the Coca-Cola operational structure is the employees who are more than 700,000 employees. These employees work in various departments such as marketing, human resource management, bottling, manufacturing distribution and so forth. In each of the department there are leaders who help in directing the employees on the work to do list. Each country has its own leadership structure with a few flexibilities to suit the cultural context and the legal authorities (Jesse, 2004).

The head office of Coca-Cola has the responsibility of directing the company and giving support to the regional structure. There is a team of the executive committee who also gets approval from other superiors and is responsible for decision making (Coca-Cola Company, 2016). The highest authority figure is the chair of the executive committee who is the CEO of the company.

Agency

Problem within Coca-Cola

The Coca-Cola marketing and advertisement agency has been facing challenges due to competition and the supposed health effect of the Coca-Cola products. Some health workers have advised people against excessive consumption of Coca-Cola because it has a lot of sugar and carbon which is not fit for health. This has made many people to withdraw from taking Coca-Cola hence leading to reduced sales.

The other challenge that the advertisement team usually face is on competition throughout the local and the global market. Coca-Cola beverages compete with both nonalcoholic beverages and alcoholic beverages from other companies. This competition means that the company has to devise better and much aggressive marketing and advertisement technique in order to remain in the global market.

Solution to the Challenge

Regarding the rising concern about the Coca-Cola beverages on people’s health the best way that the company can deal with the challenge is to opt for healthier products. The company can either decide to start producing other healthier beverages such as the fruit juice and mineral water while they reduce their production of the Coca-Cola beverages and the likes of Fanta and Sprite which are causing health hazards. The company can also opt to add some much healthier ingredients to the original Coca-Cola so as to make it healthier. They can choose to reduce the amount of sugar in the beverage without interfering with the taste if there is a possibility of doing so. This will help attract more customers especially those that are conscious about their health.

Diversifying in different products will also offer them security in the market place and prevent the company from incurring absolute loses. If for example the sale on the Coca-Cola goes down they can continue selling other products such as the mineral water.

Competition with other companies is not something that the Coca-Cola can prevent. The only option that they have is to device and invents better strategies so as to remain at the top. They already have an advantage over the incoming industries in terms of brand name, customers, internationalization and experience. Marketing will not be hard because almost every person in the world has ever had about Coca-Cola. What they need to do is to show their customers that they are mindful of their health and concerns by introducing other products but keeping the company’s name.

Jobs dimensions of Coca-Cola Company

The top most employee of the Coca-Cola Company is the CEO (Jesse, 2004). His main function is to chair the executive meetings and give final decisions on sensitive matters affecting the Company. The executive team follows in the hierarchy and their basic function is to help in major decision making in any of the basic department.

These departments are inclusive of packaging positions, the trade discounts, advertisements and marketing, price and distribution of products. There are also the top managerial teams who also are allowed to make some key decisions regarding the company; they also function as the organizers of the company’s overall activities. They delegate different duties of the specific departments to the managers. They also monitor the activities pertaining to the human resource manager. These management teams are based on every region and country and have authority over the running of the business in the specific countries.

The employees who serve as the department managers specialize in their departmental activities and manage the daily activities of the workers within the department (The NewYork Times, 2016). All of the employees to this level are usually required to be professionals in the area of their work. The other employees are not always professionals and may serve as drivers, bottlers, distributors’ sales and marketers among others. There is a Code of Conduct guide book which every employee gets oriented to during the contracting time.

Evaluation of the Current Design

The current job design is good for the company as it provides a well-defined leadership structure. When dealing with so many people it is important to have this kind of leadership where some powers are delegated to leaders in lower positions and only the critical cases reaches the top most management. The fact that the leadership is also regional is very significant. Regional leadership offers a better understanding on the culture of the locals making the local clients to be friendly.

Decision making process is fast since there are many people who can be approached with issues before going to the next level. This ensures that there are no so many pending cases that require to be dealt with. The system has also offered employment to many people across different regions.

Sharing of decisions with various departments is also fast this information can reach the top most management within a day. When the information is shared within the different departments it becomes possible to work as a whole. Having a code of conduct is effective in ensuring that the employees uphold high ethical standards at personal levels and when working as a group. This gives the company a good reputation within its locality.

The various divisions ensure that there is specialization and division of labor among the employees. Each person has a specific role there by avoiding chances of role conflict within the organization. This makes accountability of the employees to be possible since the leaders can point out a task that has not been done and the person responsible for doing that. It is also easier to monitor the employee behavior as a leader manages only a small number of people. This helps in motivating the hardworking employees and issuing warnings to the lazy ones.

Compensation packages for Executives and Employees

There are several compensation strategies that Coca-Cola uses to reward their employees and also to serve as a form of motivation to the employees. To start with; all the employees of the Coca-Cola Company earn salary according to their job positions and the type of work that they engage in. In addition to the salary the employees are also given incentives such as transport allowance, house allowance among others, hardship allowances among others. This incentives and compensations are applicable to all the employees regardless of their position but the amount of compensation is different.

The other form of compensation is being given some days of resting at least once in a year. This helps the employees to rest and have a break from the daily routine. Depending on the region or the manager some people of the Coca-Cola Companies usually spear a day in which all the employees gather together and the once who performed well are rewarded. This helps in motivating other employees to also thrive to be awarded.

Coca-Cola company has also has university- Coca-Cola University which is a learning program that provides educational opportunities for the employees with best performances. It uses peak performance system in the evaluation and recruitment of the employees to be sponsored for the program. This encourages development of employees and after learning the employees are promoted to better positions.

The Coca-Cola Company also offers other indirect compensation strategies such as insurance especially for the people working in the industrial areas. In case of any accidents incurred by the employees during working the company compensates for the damages or death. Pensions are also offered to employees who due to accidents or illness are unable to continue with the work. The retirement compensation is also usually availed to the employees who have worked for the company for a time until their age cannot allow them to go on.

Evaluation of the Compensation Package

The compensation package adopted by the Coca-Cola Company is generally comprehensive and compensates the company from the time they get employed to the time they are dismissed from work due to illness or retirement. The focus on learning is also very good as it gives the employees who could not afford to pay for their school fees an opportunity to learn and achieve their goal.

Conclusion

The Coca-Cola Company is a big company which has internationalized globally. It is one of the companies that enhances the US economy and that of other parts of the world. They have a well comprehensive leadership structure which is slightly different regionally but generally follows a centralized hierarchical leadership structure. The have many employees but always make sure that they make adequate compensation for all their employees and the executive members.